Women and prison labor [microform]

MASTER NEGATIVE #

COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES
PRESERVATION DIVISION

BIBLIOGRAPHIC MICROFORM TARGET

ORIGINAL MATERIAL AS FILMED - EXISTING BIBLIOGRAPHIC RECORD

OCLC: 37823542

Rec stat:

n

Entered:

19971022

Replaced:

19971022

Used

Type : a

ELvl:

K

Srce :

d

Audn:

Ctrl :

BLvl : m

Form:

a

Conf :

0

Biog:

MRec:

Cont :

GPub:

Fict :

0

Indx:

Desc : a

Ills:

Fest :

0

DtSt:

s

Dates:

1 040

PRl ▼c

PRl

2 007

h »b d

▼d a

▼ e f Tf

a

▼g b Th

a

•

▼ 1

C p

3 007

h ▼b d

▼d a

▼ e f ▼f

a

▼g b Th

a

t

▼1

a p -H-

•-

4 007

h Tb d

▼d a

▼e f Tf

a

▼g b Th

a

•

▼ 1

b ▼! p -H-

5 049

PRl A

J Mr

19971022
Lang :
Ctry :

eng

nyu

100 1
245 10

Boswell. ♦♦

- 8 260 New York : National Committee on Prison Labor, ▼€ 1913. ♦♦

9 300 7 p. ; Tc 26 cm. ♦♦

•- 10 440 0 Prison labor leaflets ; ▼v no. 10 **

- 11 500 "Reprinted from the Annals of the American Academy of Political

and Social Science, Philadelphia, March, 1913." ♦♦

’d to be University Libraries,

)NS ON USE: Reproductions may not be made without permission from Columbia University Libraries.

Boswell, Helen Varick. ♦♦

Women and prison labor ▼h [microform] / ^c by Helen Varick

TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA

RESTRICTIONS ON USE:

FILM SIZE: 3S’/W/»|

REDUCTION RATIO: /2'. f

IMAGE PLACEMENT: lA

DATE FILMED:

INITIALS: 4^

TRACKING # :

FILMED BY PRESERVATION RESOURCES, BETHLEHEM, PA.

V

WOMEN AND PRISON LABOR

By Helen Varick Boswell,^

Chairman, Committee on Political Science, General Federation of Women’s Clubs.

The biennial convention of the General Federation of Women’s
Clubs at San Francisco, in June, 1912, unanimously passed the fol-
lowing resolutions which were presented by the industrial and social
conditions committee :

Whereas, Club women having discussed throughout the country, under the
auspices of the industrial and social conditions committee, the problem of prison
labor, and said committee having submitted to careful scrutiny the reports of
investigations in this field by the National Committee on Prison Labor and kin-
dred local committees:

Resolvedy That the General Federation of Women’s Clubs declares itself as
opposed to the contract system of prison labor, and to every other system which
exploits his labor to the detriment of the prisoner, and that we urge upon the sev-
eral states the advisability of establishing healthy outdoor work for able convicts,
remedial care for the feeble and degenerate, and industrial education for all who
have the potentiality for reform.

And we further affirm that the products of convicts’ labor should be consumed
by the state, and that the profits therefrom, above the just cost of his keep,
should be used to support such dependent family as he may have.

These resolutions were not revolutionary, but a natiu*al evolu-
tion from the words which Elizabeth Fry penned a century ago in
justification of her experiment in introducing work into the prisons
of England:

No prison can be considered complete which does not afford the means of
hard labor, which properly appertains to a reforming discipline of punishment.
Some remuneration for their work, even during their continuance in confinement,
will be found to act as a powerful stimulus to a steady and persevering industry.
And if in laboring for this remuneration the poor criminal has also gained posses-
sion of the habit of industry, and has learned to appreciate the sweets of regular
employment, it is more than probable that his temptation may never occur again.*

* Miss Boswell was also Chairman Industrial and Social Conditions Committee, General
Federation of Women’s Clubs, 1910-12, and Chairman Woman’s Department, National Republican
Campaign Committee, 1912.

* Elizabeth Fry, Observations on the Visiting, Superintendence and Government of Female PriS’
oners, pp. 48-53.

(3)

4

The Annals of the American Academy

Labor was thus introduced as a boon, to supply the worker
with a few necessities for sustaining himself tixid those dependent
upon him. This refonn, which caused the little Quaker w^oman to
be hailed as the greatest philanthropist of her age, developed into
a more definite problem as the industrial revolution took place.
Change from hand-work to machine-w^ork necessitated supplying
both work-houses and penal institutions with new devices, so that
the goods might compete in the market. Aga’.nst the introduction
of these machines, labor brought its full force, as part of the larger
opposition to the new' devices.

In the w'ork-houses the labor movement w'as successful, not
only in forbidding the use of machinery, but in suppressing com-
peting industries. In the f>risons the same W'^is true, until the de-
mand of the new' industrial system for w'orkmen pointed out to
certain capitalists the pecuniary advantage of securing the w'ork of
conidcts in return for supplying machinery and marketing the
product.

In England, France and Germany the conflict W'as quieted by
the limitation of the w'ork of comdcts for the most part to enter-
prises of the state, the construction of ditches and dykes, the build-
ing of institutions and the manufacture of state goods. In the
American states, prison reformers w'ere so eager in their advocacy
of the congregate or solitary systems of housing the convicts and
the building of costly model institutions W'hich might be an example
for the world, that it became difficult to combat the grow'ing evils
of the penal industrial system w'ithout placing upon the taxpayer
a very much larger responsibility than he w'ould accept.

During this period, the system of contracting the W'ork of
prisoners to business enterprises developed and, despite the graft
incident to it, paid the state so well that the citizens were seldom
taxed for the maintenance of the prisons. The conditions in these
industries W'ere often the cause of investigations, and one device
after another w'as employed to calm the wrath of the labor unions,
to appease the demands of the prison refoniKTS for more humane
treatment of the prisoners, and at the same time, W'hile building
the great institutions, to trouble as little as possible the taxpayer.
New' York State did aw'ay wdth the contractors in its prisons and
supplied in 1894 a preferred market for its prison goods in its own
institutions and departments. Law's were also passed prohibiting

Women and Prison Labor 5

any person from exposing convict goods for sale without a license
and requiring that such goods be marked *‘Con\ict Alade.” A vio-
lation of the branding and licensing law'S w'as reported to me, and
as chairman of the industrial and child labor committee of the New
York State Federation of Women's Clubs, fearing that such vio-
lation would tend to interfere with the legitimate occupations of
numbers of W'omen, and indirectly force more children into work,
I lodged a complaint with the New’ York State Commissioner of
Labor, who assigned an exj^ert of the department to make the
investigation.

The findings of this investigation were briefly presented to the
New York State Federation at its convention in Rochester by the
Commissioner of Labor, who stated:

That the competition between prison labor products and the products of
free labor has been so serious as to result in a forced lowering of wages of free men,
and has tended either to drive people on the street or to lower standards of living;
that New York State has endeavored to erect safeguards against the baneful
effects of this competition by the enactment of branding and licensing laws;
but that these laws, the Supreme Court has held unconstitutional on the ground
that the branding and licensing impaired the market value of the product and went
beyond the powers of the legislature, and that it violated federal and state con-
stitutions.

Furthemiore, in his annual report, the Commissioner of Labor
urged the establishment of a national committee on prison labor
which should undertake to deal scientifically with the problem and
to gather the conflicting forces and center them upon a social pro-
gram. The National Committee on Prison Labor was organized
as the result of this recommendation, and it was in cooperation
with this committee that the General Federation of Women’s Clubs
endorsed the bill introduced into the house of representatives “that
all goods, wares and merchandise manufactured wholly or in part
by conA’ict labor, or in any prison or refonnatory, transported into
any state or territory or remaining therein for use, consumption,
sale or storage, shall, upon arrir-al and delivery in such state or
territory, be subject to the operation and effect of the laws of such
state or tendtory to the same extent and in the same manner as
though such goods, wares and mercliandise had been manufactured
in such state or territory, and shall not be exempt therefrom by
reason of being introduced in original packages or othenvise.” The

6

The Annals of the American Academy

passage of this bill would simply make goods introduced from one
state into another subject to the laws of the state into which they
came, thus making constitutional such laws as the New York brand-
ing and licensing laws.

At the hearing in Washington, in March, 1910, on this bill,
u-ith Mrs. J. Ellen Foster, Mrs. Samuel Spencer, Mrs. John Hays
Hammond and others interested in women in the industries, I repre-
sented the General Federation of Women’s Clubs, and drew atten-
tion to the disastrous effects upon women’s work of the competi-
tion of prison workers.

Another phase of the problem presented itself as the result of
further investigation — the problem of the prisoner’s wife and chil-
dren. Illustrative of this problem are the following cases;

On the lower East Side of New York City, a woman and four
little children under five years of age were found one bitterly cold
day last November, in a practically starving condition, without
means of heating the room and with only the thinnest of cotton
garments. The children were so young that it was impossible for
the mother to leave them to go to work, so the little family was
entirely dependent on the more or less spasmodic efforts of charity,
and it was doubtful whether the home could be kept together until
the expiration of the father’s sentence, while surely in Sing Sing his
sufferings were less keen than those of the wife and children.

Minnesota legislation provides that the managing board of
the reformatory may, in the exercise of its discretion, aid the vfives
and children of the inmates. The managing board has decided,
however, that the law does not authorize it to furnish support to
dependents living outside the state, thus relieving other jurisdictions
from their obligation to support their own poor. Consequently
one of the prisoners having an epileptic wife and two children in
New Jersey ^X^as unable to afford them any support.

Nine prisoners, interviewed at random, in ihe Michigan state
prison all admitted that they were married and had been earning
at the time of conviction amounts varying from $1 per day to
$2,000 per year, while in prison the highest sum earned was $34
per year; all had children under fourteen years of age. In seven
cases the wives were endeavoring to provide for their children, their
earnings never exceeding $8 per week and in three cases amounting
to only $2. One wife was a cripple and in another case it was

L

Women and Prison Labor 7

stated that the family w’as dependent on help provided by the Poor
Commission.

These are but a few instances, but they show the definite need
of working out some plan whereby the prisoner should labor while
in prison, and his earnings above the cost of his keep, should go to
those who are rightly dependent upon him.

Club women have carried on the agitation in many states.
They have interested Vice-President Marshall, who, in his campaign
literature, claimed the convict labor reforms as part of his labor
record. They have interested Governor Cox, of Ohio, one of whose
first official acts was the appointment of a special commission to
study certain prison problems; in Maryland, Kentucky, Tennessee,
Oregon and Washington, they have been specially active; and they
will continue this activity until in all the states of the Union justice
has been secured for the free w'orker, the prisoner and his family.

Ni^TIONAL COMMITTEE ON PRISON LABOR.

University Hall, Columbia University,

New York.

Executive Committee.

George J. .Vdda.v
Judyi', Juvenile
John- U. Alpine,
7tli Vice Pres. A
Mr.s. Ophelia L.

Supt. Ala.. lIoiiK
Dr. Carol Aron<
Director Bureau
Per.’Y a. Athert
Chu. Mass. Co:i
Prof. William B
Yale University.
WiLLiA.M H. Hall
Washington. D.
Brother B vrv.vb
Lincoindale Ai;r
William S. Benn
Lawyer. Xew V
Mrs. Elmer Bla*
.\( \v York City.
Miss Helen' Var
Chn. Com. on 1
George L. Cady,
Dorchester. Ma?
Peter Campbell,
Chn. LeK. Coun
George Cos.son',
.\tty. Gen. of I<
Prof. Ira B. Cr(
Lelaiid Stanford
Edgar T. DAVIE^
Chief Factory I
Miles M. D.aws<
Consulting Actu
William II. DeL
Judge. Juvenile
Amasa M. Eaton
Commissioner o
Mrs. M. a. Fan;

Sec. Board of C
Prof. Will.ard C
'Mayor, Middiet
Bernard Flexne
Lawyer, Louisvi
Hugh F. Fox.

S'‘C. U. S. Brew<
Dr. D. S. Freem
Pres. Va. Confei
John P. Frey.

Editor Iron Moi
Andrew J. Gall’
Pres. Cal. F. of
Prof. Robert H.

.V. W. Univ.. E
Prof. E. A. Gilm
University of W;
Dr. Percy S. Gr
Rector. Church
W. O. Hart,
Lawyer, New Oi
John R. Haynes,
\Iemhcr State R
John Hvyne.s Ho
Minister, Churcl
Hamilton Holt,
Editor, The Indf
Thoma.s W. Hou.s
Chaplain Kansa?
Mrs. Archibald
Chn. Woman’s A
Richard M. Huri
iPres. Lawyers’ ^
Alexander Johns
Dir. Ex. Dept.,
»N. J.

Richvrd Lloyd J'
Editor, Wisconsi
B. A. Larger.

G m. Sec. Unit"'
Prop. Samuel Me
Columbia Univci
Ben B. Lindsf.y,
Judge, Juvenile •
Collis Lovely,
^\'ice Pres. Inten
Alfred E. Lunt,
Lawyer, Boston.
F. Emory Lyon.

Central Howard
N. W. M ^cCHE■*N
Jud'3 Advocate

.Jourt. Cleveland, O.

F. of L.

Amigh.
for GirU.

VICI,

Social Service, Providence, R. 1.

)N,

aiittee on Prison Labor.

Bailey,

•. School, N. Y.

:t.

rk Cite.

CE Boswell,

A. Science, Gen. Fed. of Women’s Clubs.

il, Ky. F. of L.

5\a.

ss.

Univ’.

spector. 111.

N'.

iry. New Y’ork.

.CY.

Court, Washington. D. C.

Uniform Laws. Providence. R. I.

ING,

)unty Visitors, Cleveland, O.

Fisher,

»wn. Coun.

le, Ky.

rs A.ssn.

N,

mce of Charitio.s <fe Corrections.

Iders Journal, Cincinnati, O.

JHER,

Gault,

. Jour, of Crim. Law and Criminology

>RE,

iconsin.

NT,

>f the Ascension. New York,
eans. La.

)ani of Charities & Corrections. Cal.

MES.

of the Messiah. New York.

aendent.

•on,

State Prison.

lOPKINS.

’^elfare Dept., National Civic Fed.
ortgage Co., N. Y.

)N,

rr.uniiig School for Feeble-minded, Vineland

NES,

I State Journal.

Garment Workers.

CuNB Lindsay,
dty.

^lu^t, Denver.

ational Boot & Shoe Workers Union.

\ssn., Chicago.

;y,

den., Chicago.

Dr. Charles S. MacFarland,

Sec. Federal Couru-il of the Churche.s of Christ in America.
Julian W. Mack.

Judge. U. S. Commerce Court.

John j. Manning,

Editor “The Garnicrit Worker.”

John B. Mayo,

Justice, Court of Special Session.'^, New York.

William J. Martin,

State Land .Vgeiit. Montgomery, Ala.

Prof. Royal Meeker,

Princeton University.

Prof. Charles E. \Ierriam,

L'niversity of Chicago.

John Mitchell.

2nd Vice Pn‘s. A. F. of L.

Mr.s. Philip N. Moore,

St. Louis. Mo.

William Fellowes MoK«iAN,

Sec. New Jersey Immigration Com.

Prof. James M. Motley,

Brown University.

Charles P. Neill,

U. S, Com. of Labor.

Miss Linda Nevilie.

Exec. Sec. Ky. Soeuuy for Prevention of Blindness
Dr. W. H. 0\tes.

.Via. State Prison Inspector.

Harry V. Osborne.

Judge, Common Pleas Court. N(*w Jersey.

Thomas M. Osborne,

Pres. George Junior Rcpuldic.

Elwin L. Page.

Chn. Workhouse Investigation Com., New Hampshire.
Prof. Maurice Pahmelek,
l’niversity of Miss<)uri.

Mrs. Percy V. Pennybacker.

Pres. Gen. Fed. Women’s Clubs.

Edw. T. Perine,

Accountant, New York City.

Edgar .V. Perkins,

Pres. Indiana F. of L.

James Bronson Reynolds,

Asst. Dist. Atty., N. Y.

Raymond Robins.

Soc. Ser. Expert, Men and Religion Forward Movement,
Chas. Ed. Russell,

Writer. New York City.

R. Montgomery Schell.

Trustee. George Junior Republic.

Dr. Louis Livingston Seaman,

New York City.

Clarence J. Shearn,

Lawyer, New York Ciiy.

Dr. Thomas R. Slicer.

Minister, All Souls Church, New York C’ity.

Henry Solomon,

Pres. N. Y. St. Com. of Prisons.

John J. Sonstery,

Atty. United Garment Workers.

Mrs. Anna Carlin Spencf.p.

W’’oman’s International Review.

Leslie W’illis Sprague,

Minister, Wellingt<'n .\ve. Con". Church. Chicago,

Francis Lynde Stet.son,

Lawyer. New York City.

Warren S. Stone.

Chief, Brotherhood of Locomotive F.n"inecrs.

Mrs. Wm. Cummino Story.

Honorary State Regent. New Yor!;, D. A. R.

Mrs. Isobel Stronj;.

Santa Barbara. Cal.

Mrs. Eva MacDonu.d Vat.e.^ti.

Editor, American ('lub W’oinan.

George E. Van Kennen.

Chn. New York Conservation Com.

R. B. von Kletnsmid.

Psychological Expert, Ind. Ref.

Edwin P. Wentworth.

Pres. Me. Prison Assn.

Dr. E. Staoq Whittn,

Columbia University
John Williams,

New York Com. ol Labor.

Dr. Stephen S. Wise.

Free Synagogue, New A’ork City.

Miss M art Wood. , ^ u

Chn. Public Service Com., N ^ Fed. of Women s Clubs,